“The hospital will call—”
“When? When?”
“When the operation is over. Meantime, why don’t you try and get a little rest? You can stretch out here on the sofa, Judy, until the telephone rings,” Dale suggested.
Judy shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m going back to New York—I want to be at the hospital—”
“In the middle of the night?” Irene shook her head. “You’ll do Peter more good if you’re not exhausted when you see him.”
This silenced Judy. She knew it would be better to try and get some rest as Dale suggested. “I won’t sleep,” she told herself when Dale and Irene had left her alone in the dimly lighted living room. She remembered thinking the same thing just before she fell asleep on the train. The sofa was long and low—like a train. Again she could hear the clanking wheels as they rumbled out the words, “Dull, drab, dull, drab ...” faster and faster. Once more she was crowded in, almost suffocated by the throng of golden-haired people. She was looking for Peter. But she could see nothing but blank faces topped by golden curls.
“Peter, where are you?” came the voiceless cry.
Judy awoke from her dream of terror to hear the telephone ringing. She sprang toward it, half asleep, jerked the instrument from its resting place, and asked breathlessly, “Is this the hospital? How is he?”
“It’s Honey.” The voice of Peter’s sister seemed to come from very far away. “They called us, since they couldn’t reach you. How is he, Judy? And how are you taking it? I couldn’t sleep. I just had to call and find out how everything is.”
